Martha Beaumont

Born: Newcastle, 1986.  Based in London

City & Guilds of London Art School (MA Fine Art , 2013)

My photographs document life-size sets that are assembled and painted in the studio for the sole purpose of the final photographic image. They are entirely staged – highly idealised and symmetrically composed – and by using as combination of stylised and naturalistic painting within the sets, they impose a sense of the theatrical on the landscape of the American South West. 

This body of work, A Place Out West celebrates the romance of the West Texas outpost, Marfa. I was particularly struck by the clash of minimalist concrete land art and policemen wearing Stetsons and cowboy boots in the year 2013. It seemed like a place of the imagination, and a perfect starting point for a series of photographs that play with the boundaries of reality and fiction. 

EDUCATION

 2012-2013 MA in Fine Art at City & Guilds of London Art School. Passed with commendation.

2005-2009 Studied at an atelier, Charles H Cecil Studios in Florence, Italy.

RESIDENCIES / AWARDS

Stephen Good Prize for Engraving, exhibiting as a photographer and creating theatrical art installations

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2014 LAKE ISLAND residency exhibition, Degree Art, Vyner Street, London

2013-2014 Christmas Salon, Eleven Fine Art, London

2013 MA Degree Show, City & Guilds Art School, London

2010 NUBA It’s a Material World, London West Bank Gallery, London